The title-page of the 1600 quarto of "Henry V." mentions Henry's "battell fought at Agin Court, in France, togither with Auntient Pistoll." "Swaggering Pistoll," like Falstaff, had become a delight to the town. The play is, in fact, not a "chronicle history," but a slice out of history, and not of well-made history either, since the evils of Henry's unjust wars are not touched upon. Then Shakespeare's King is an endless talker, while in reality he was the most silent of men. It was ostensibly a "Jingo" play, written to open the Globe playhouse with a patriotic flourish of trumpets. Its object, besides, was to please those Londoners who had not forgotten 1588, when Englishmen faced a similar ordeal to that at Agincourt, and came out victorious, not because they had the means but the men. The interest of this drama, to the Elizabethan playgoer, depended on the knowledge that a handful of starved and ragged soldiers had won a decisive battle over an army which was its superior in numbers and equipment, and contained all the pride and chivalry of the French nation. And the stage-direction in the folio indicates the contrast thus: "_Enter the King and his poore Souldiers_." On the modern stage, however, this direction is ignored, though perhaps it has never been noticed. The whole evening is taken up by the evolutions of a handsome young prince, gorgeously dressed, and spotlessly clean, newly come from his military tailor, together with a large number of equally well-dressed and well-fed soldiers, who tramp after him on and off the stage, not a penny the worse for all the hardships they are supposed to have encountered! Of the French episodes two are omitted and the rest mutilated, while no prominence is given to them, nor is the numerical superiority of the French indicated. Nothing is seen of its army beyond the leaders and their one or two attendants, who are thrust into the contracted space of a front scene. This seems rather an upside down way to act the play!